It was 2013, Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In had just come out and its mantra of female empowerment in the workplace was stirring discussions. As a young engineer at the preeminent conference for women in tech, I listened to Sandberg as she warned that the numbers of women in the industry were dropping. I appreciated the consciousness raising, but I wondered, where exactly were these numbers? How could a data-driven industry track no data around diversity? How could any change happen without it?

I wrote about the lack of public data around women in the tech industry, shared the numbers from my own team—I was one of only 11 women out of 89 engineers at Pinterest—and encouraged other tech workers to share their stats too. The post went viral, and my voice was credited for pushing new diversity initiatives at tech companies big and small. It felt like we were entering a new era, one where old doors were cracking open for people who’d never had access to important rooms before. In more recent years, as a founder, I’ve been heartened to see more women and people of color in roles of leadership and capital allocation.

Attacks on DEI

But in 2025, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling for more masculine workplaces, and the Trump administration striking down diversity initiatives in public and private spaces, I worry if even the inadequate progress that we have made is rolling back. This week, Google told staff they are eliminating their diversity hiring targets.

Pushing tech spaces toward a more even playing field has always been a battle. I cofounded Project Include in 2016 to help accelerate diversity and inclusion solutions in the tech industry, not just track numbers and heads. And in 2021, I started my company Block Party to help protect outspoken voices like mine from the online harassment that had reached a fever pitch across tech platforms.

Long before Trump’s recent executive orders put the administration’s intentions in black and white, tech culture has been sliding back toward a white boys club. Through dog-whistle terms like “merit-based” and “mission-focused,” CEOs and VCs have been signaling their intentions to slam those doors shut again. Some tech companies have been quietly laying off teams dedicated to expanding opportunities for employees and widening applicant pools under cover of cost savings. Meta recently shut down its diversity initiatives, Amazon has begun winding down programs and policies, and now Google has abandoned its diversity hiring goals. The cultural and political pressure continues to build. Zuckerberg even directly distanced himself from Sheryl Sandberg in conversations with the new administration, blaming her for Meta’s diversity policies. No one, it seems, wants women and underrepresented minorities like me to lean in anymore.

The value of diversity

But the benefits of having the people who build technology look like the people who use it remain as compelling as ever—if not more so. More diverse leadership in companies is linked to greater profitability and innovation. When people are around others who have different perspectives, they are less likely to assume agreement and work to build more solid cases for decision-making.

Effective diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs actually raise the bar and make it so there aren’t artificial barriers excluding non-traditional candidates from consideration and thus limiting the pool of talent. And teams that include a wide range of perspectives are more likely to spot big product gaps or errors—like a voice-recognition system that doesn’t recognize female voices, or an automated hand dryer that doesn’t recognize darker skinned hands. Not to mention that shutting out more than half the population means huge economic opportunity losses, not just for those individuals (which some might argue is reason enough) but for the nation overall.

The significance and the potential of diversity initiatives have not changed since I started fighting for them. What’s shifted is the story that people in power are telling. And that narrative has nothing to do with data and everything to do with clawing back control of an industry and a country that they’re reluctant to share.

Staying in the room

Today, I don’t know what I’d say to the young woman engineer I was a decade ago. I don’t know that I’d tell her to write a post on a social media platform and hope it reaches the ears and eyes it needs to. I don’t know that companies can be pushed by moral arguments to expand opportunities, or even be convinced by business cases for better outcomes. And since “DEI” has been weaponized for bad-faith arguments in the dogma of so-called meritocracy, I’d probably advise against using the term. Avoiding the tech industry isn’t a solution, because that dogma has spread everywhere.

I can say confidently that if you are someone who wants to create change, as I was in 2013 and I still am now, there is hope. The world is constantly evolving, and the strategies we used in one era won’t work in another. We need new ways of discussing the benefits of diverse teams and leadership, and new strategies for pushing forward the work in a climate that is pushing back hard.

But before we can build a theory of change and find potential intervention points, we need to understand how things really work. Firsthand experience in the industry is one way to do that. In fact, it may be more important now for those of us already in the rooms to stay in them—and hold the doors open for others as long as we can. Even if “DEI” ends up being a blip in the long road of history, diverse and inclusive workplaces will continue to reward those who nurture them.

Tracy Chou is the CEO and founder of Block Party and helped kickstart diversity initiatives in Silicon Valley.

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